Social media has become the most influential marketing area for small businesses. A right social media strategy allows businesses to form a strong personal relationship with potential customers. Though, many startup businesses frequently mistake of using social media without a solid strategy. A proper social media plan can get you on top, and the pits can be a PR disaster. To take advantage from the social media, you need to have a solid strategy which entails your business goals, understanding your customers and what your competition is up to.

Below mentioned are few tips that can get you started with a kick-ass social media presence:

Identify Your Purpose

The first step before creating any plan is to know where you want to go. The same rule applies to a social media strategy. You should what your social media purpose is. What you really want from your social media strategy. Are you only looking to increase sales or brand exposure? Or, you need high website traffic or to build customer loyalty? Do you want increased customer retention?

As all these targets aren’t equally exclusive, so you should contemplate on one or two: If you’re about to go for all of them, you’re not going to achieve anything. So identifying your social media strategy is your first step.

Create Quantifiable Goals

The second step is to quantifiable goals based on your purpose. You need to make sure your goals are precise, quantifiable, achievable, and pertinent by following a S.M.A.R.T. strategy.

For instance, if you’re going to boost your digital presence, you might want to increase the number of times your brand is pointed out on social media by 60%. Or, if you want to increase sales, you might settle on generating additional online leads monthly. In all such cases, your purposes should be directly attached to your business goals, and they should be realizable.

After setting your goals, ensure they all are measurable. Stumble on the right measuring tools to track and examine each goal, so as to put a figure on your progress. This way you can spot issues along and also know when you have achieved them fully.

Differentiate Your Target Audience

Once you know where you’re heading to, the next thing to know how you can get there. Social media is all about people so as a business; you should know how to target them with the right business messages. And for this, you better know your target audience first.

Creating buyer personas is the best start. Spend time and build a thorough profile of your target audiences. While creating a detailed profile consider their name, age group, income level, children, their likes or dislikes, motivation factors, and so on. Create a persona for each of your ideal customer.

Analyze Your Competition

Competition analysis is another important factor to tune your social media strategy. Analyzing them can tell what works and what doesn’t. As they are targeting the same audience you are – being it an incredible opening to learn from their successes and slip-ups.

Start your competition research by picking the top ones and observe on what social media channels they’re active on, and follow their content strategy. What type of messages they are broadcasting? Are they focusing on their products or services? This way you can conclude which social media strategies are reaping great results and which don’t.

Develop your Business Message

After you have clear understanding of your target audience and competition, next is to start developing your key business messages. The message isn’t the detailed content; it’s the notable key messages that will resound with your audience based on the created personas. Start from choosing few and break them into another simple level creating a messaging hierarchy.

You can also choose your competitors’ successful ideas but try to be unique and create your original messages as a unique brand voice. Make sure your social media presence is exciting and not mind-numbing.

Pick Your Social Channels

Choosing a social media channel is an important element for business success. You need to choose one that relates to your business products or services.

For instance, if you’re targeting B2B businesses, LinkedIn is a perfect channel to start. If you’re in fashion industry, Pinterest is a better option. Some social media channels will become apparent when you analyze your competition but see if any related channels were unnoticed.

Another viable opportunity is to identify influencers who can buzz around your brand and reach your target audience. They can be good bloggers or social media writers. Engaging with influencers not only increase your brand awareness making but also increase your online reputation and create brand advocate.

Develop A Solid Content Strategy

Finally, the last most important thing is the solid content strategy that will deliver engage users and convert them into your customers. Your content strategy should be aligned with your key business messages and be suitable for the social media channels you’re using. Offer something real value to your customers rather than just product/service information. Use your brand culture with a mix of images, videos, infographics, guides, presentations, and fans spotlight to engage your target audience successfully. Provide quality fresh content regularly for a strong constant social media presence.